Fashion brands offer 'protective' clothing

HÀ NỘI — Hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic fashion brands and fashion shops are turning to sell protective suits and other anti-pandemic products, though it's unclear what protection they offer if any.

Local fashion brand Ivy Moda is offering protective suits for adults and children in white and blue colour. The one-time-use products are sold at VNĐ80,000 (children) andVNĐ100,000 (adult) each. The fashion company also produces face masks.

So far it has sold nearly 5,000 products.

Similarly, Format fashion company, which produces women clothes and accessories, also announced it will start selling face masks and purportedly protective headwear.

Each set of three masks printed with the national flag with the words 'Tự hào Việt Nam' (proud of Việt Nam) costs VND63,000 while the protective headwear costs VND45,000.

As one of the biggest garment firms in Việt Nam, Garment 10 Corporation Joint Stock Company announced it was offering white and light pink protective suits. Earlier, the firm also started manufacturing face masks.

This week the firm's director Thân Đức Việt said they had invested in producing medical face masks as well as cloth masks with 10 production lines, adding it also received an export order for 400 million medical face masks worth US$52 million.

Amid increasing demand to feel protected amid the pandemic, unbranded protective suits have been sold online for about VNĐ100,000 each.

Nguyễn Thu Thảo, the owner of a fashion shop in Khâm Thiên Street in Hà Nội, said she could only sell anti-virus products such as suits, masks, glasses and drop-proof hats instead of normal clothes. When her shop closed recently, she kept selling them online.

Thảo said on her Facebook: “The clothes sale has been dropping badly since the beginning of the pandemic. Thankfully, the sale of anti-pandemic gear is growing or I would be badly hurt.”

Only Ivy Moda's products are made with materials certified by State-owned quality assessment agency of VInaControl.

It is unclear whether any of the products are considered protective in any way by medical professionals. — VNS